Seagulls & Ices #2
The matter appeared settled, and yet Elizabeth had the faintest sense that something had been attempted and set aside.
The library stood a little way off the parade, tucked between a milliner and a stationer, its windows crowded with pamphlets, prints, and guidebooks promising instruction to the curious visitor. Kitty went in first with eager interest, Mary close behind her.
Elizabeth paused a moment upon the threshold and, glancing back, saw Mrs Younge speaking quietly with a gentleman who had approached from the direction of the harbour. The exchange lasted no more than a few seconds. The man inclined his head and walked away at once without entering the shop.
By the time Elizabeth looked again, Mrs Younge was following them inside with her usual composed expression.
Elizabeth told herself the explanation was simple enough. A delivery arranged, perhaps, or some small household matter belonging to the house.
Mary, however, glanced once toward the street before turning to the shelves.
Neither of them spoke of it.
A few days later they had just placed their orders when the door opened.
Elizabeth did not look up at once. It was Georgiana’s stillness that drew her attention, a sudden arrested quality, as if the air in the room had changed.
“Miss Darcy.”
The voice was warm, well-modulated, and entirely at ease.
The gentleman who had spoken stood a little inside the door, his hat already removed, his bow correct without being formal.
He was handsome in a way that announced itself without effort, his smile managing to be both pleased and surprised in equal measure.
“I thought it must be you,” he said. “What a fortunate coincidence.”
Georgiana had risen halfway from her chair without seeming to know that she had done so.
“Mr Wickham.”
Her voice carried both recognition and uncertainty, as if the years between had not yet arranged themselves in her mind. A faint colour came into her cheeks.
Mr Wickham’s expression softened at once.
“My dear Miss Darcy. I did not expect such a pleasure in Ramsgate.”
He checked himself almost immediately and stepped back with a small, apologetic inclination of the head.
“You must forgive me. I see I have intruded upon your party. Miss Darcy, will you allow me the honour of being introduced to your friends?”
The request seemed to recall Georgiana fully to the present. She coloured a little more deeply but answered at once.
Elizabeth set down her spoon.
The movement was small and unhurried, but it was deliberate.
She looked at the gentleman with the attentiveness she reserved for things that required it, taking in the easy confidence of his address, the warmth that had arrived so precisely at the right moment, and the way his eyes moved once across the table before returning to Georgiana.
“Forgive me. Miss Bennet, Miss Mary Bennet, Miss Kit—Miss Catherine Bennet.” She hesitated only slightly. “Mr Wickham is—he grew up at Pemberley. His father was my father’s steward.”
Wickham bowed with easy correctness.
“I am very happy to make your acquaintance.”
His manner carried the quiet assurance of a man perfectly at home in polite society, and yet Elizabeth had the curious sense that he observed them all at once, as if weighing the company into which chance had delivered him.
Mary returned his bow with composed civility. Kitty’s curiosity was already awake, her eyes bright with interest. Elizabeth inclined her head, observing him without speaking.
“I must beg pardon for interrupting your morning,” Wickham continued easily. “Ramsgate offers few enough agreeable surprises, and I fear I have been selfish in seizing this one.”
“You do not interrupt us at all,” Georgiana said quickly, though the colour had not quite left her cheeks.
“I am glad of it,” he replied. “Still, I will not detain you longer. Miss Darcy, it has given me great pleasure to see you looking so well.”
He bowed once more to the ladies, his manner perfectly regulated between warmth and restraint.
Then, with another easy inclination of the head, he took his leave and stepped back into the street as quietly as he had appeared.
For a moment the little shop seemed oddly still.
Kitty was the first to speak.
“Well,” she said with lively curiosity, “that was a very handsome gentleman.”
Georgiana did not immediately answer. Elizabeth noticed that she was still watching the doorway through which he had gone.
Georgiana looked down at her ice, which had begun to soften at the edges. When she looked up again her expression was composed, but there was something in it that had not been there before.
“He was always very kind,” she said, to no one in particular. “When I was small, he used to bring me things from the village. Little things. He remembered what I liked.”
Mrs Younge smiled, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
Elizabeth said nothing. She picked up her spoon and found she had lost her appetite for lemon cream.
For a few moments no one spoke. The little shop resumed its quiet sounds—the faint clink of spoons, the murmur of voices from the street, the slow drip of melting ice in its glass dish.
Kitty was still looking toward the door.
“I did not expect Ramsgate to produce such acquaintances,” she said at last, with lively interest.
Mary, who had been watching Georgiana rather than the doorway, returned her attention to her spoon without comment.
Georgiana did not appear to hear them. Her gaze remained upon the street a moment longer before she spoke.
“My father was always very fond of him.”
Kitty brightened at once.
“Then we must certainly hope to meet him again,” she declared. “Ramsgate is already improving.”
Mary folded the printed bill with careful neatness.
“If we mean to visit the library today, we should not linger too long,” she said quietly.
Mrs Younge rose at once, as though the suggestion had merely confirmed a plan already formed.
“Quite right. The morning will not remain cool forever.”
Georgiana gathered her gloves slowly.
Elizabeth set down her spoon and stood.
Outside, the sea wind met them again as they stepped into the street.
The days resumed their easy pattern.
Morning walks upon the parade, a pause above the harbour to watch the boats shifting with the tide, and sometimes a visit to the circulating library if Mary discovered a volume she wished to examine.
Kitty sketched with varying success, Georgiana grew visibly easier in the sea air, and Mrs Younge kept careful watch over hours and weather.
Elizabeth found herself listening, now and then, for a voice she told herself she did not expect to hear again.
It was on such a morning, several days later, that they met Mr Wickham upon the parade once more.
The morning was bright but less crowded than usual, the tide running low in the harbour below the parade. Kitty had stopped twice already to lean over the rail and declare the fishing boats vastly more interesting than the ones of the previous day.
They had nearly reached the curve of the walk where the harbour opened fully to view when Georgiana slowed.
A gentleman stood at the rail some distance ahead, watching the movement of the boats.
He turned as their party approached.
Recognition crossed his face almost at once.
“Miss Darcy.”
Georgiana stopped, the surprise upon her face quickly giving way to pleasure.
“Mr Wickham.”
He bowed at once, removing his hat with easy civility.
“I wondered whether I should meet you again upon the parade,” he said. “Ramsgate grows smaller with every agreeable acquaintance.”
Kitty looked from one to the other with bright curiosity.
“You walk here every morning, then?” she asked.
“Whenever the weather allows it,” Mr Wickham replied lightly. “The harbour provides entertainment enough for any idle gentleman.”
Mrs Younge had paused a few steps behind them.
“Miss Catherine,” she called gently, pointing toward the harbour below, “was it not the fishing boats you wished to sketch? That one there has its nets out.”
Kitty turned at once.
“Oh! Mary, look at it!”
She hurried toward the rail, Mary following more slowly with the small notebook she had been carrying.
For a moment the movement of the harbour claimed their full attention, leaving Georgiana and Mr Wickham walking a few paces ahead upon the parade. He offered his arm, which she accepted.
Elizabeth turned her gaze toward the sea, allowing them their conversation, and breathed in the salt air.
Mr Wickham did not remain long. After a few minutes he bowed and took his leave.
Georgiana returned to Elizabeth and stood beside her at the rail, her gaze upon the water.
“I had forgotten how agreeable his company is.”
“When did you last see him?” Elizabeth asked, turning slightly to look at her young friend.
“Four years ago, after my father had died.”
The encounter might have been forgotten, yet Ramsgate was not so large that acquaintances vanished entirely.
Several days passed in the same pleasant routine of walks, books, and the small discoveries that made the town agreeable.
It was upon one such morning that they saw him again.
They had just reached the harbour rail, Kitty already pointing out some new vessel of interest, when a gentleman standing a little apart turned at the sound of their approach.
Georgiana coloured slightly but returned his greeting with evident pleasure.
“Mr Wickham.”
He bowed to the ladies with easy civility and exchanged a few light observations on the harbour and the morning’s wind before taking his leave with the same careful politeness as before.
They watched him walk a little way along the parade before turning back to their own course.
Elizabeth was silent a moment, watching the tide draw slowly away from the harbour steps.
“I do not recall hearing his name at Lambton,” she said at last. “Though the neighbourhood seems small enough that one grows accustomed to hearing of everyone.”
Georgiana considered a moment before answering.
“My brother did not speak of him much afterwards,” she said. “Mr Wickham left Pemberley not long after my father died.”
Elizabeth watched the boats shifting slowly with the tide.
“And his father?” she asked. “Mr Booth is steward now, is he not?”
“Yes,” Georgiana said. “Mr Booth has the management of the estate. Mr Wickham’s father had been unwell for some time before Papa died.”
“I have heard Mr Booth much spoken of in Lambton,” Elizabeth replied.
“So he is,” Georgiana said. “Mr Wickham did not remain long at Pemberley afterwards. He meant to study the law.”
Elizabeth glanced at her.
“The law?”
“Papa had intended him for the church,” Georgiana said. “But Mr Wickham preferred the law instead. My brother agreed it was the better course.”
Elizabeth rested her hands upon the rail.
“And he went to London to pursue it?”
“So I understood,” Georgiana replied. “Though we did not see him very often afterwards.”
Elizabeth nodded, watching the tide shift against the harbour wall.
“Lambton speaks little of him now.”
Georgiana seemed faintly surprised.
“Does it not?”
“No,” Elizabeth said gently. “Which only makes me curious how Ramsgate should restore the acquaintance so readily.”
“His father did not live long after Papa,” Georgiana said quietly. “He had been unwell for some time.”
Elizabeth turned slightly toward her.
“And his mother?”
“She died not long afterwards,” Georgiana replied. “Mr Wickham was quite alone then, I believe.”
Elizabeth looked back toward the harbour.
“And it was after that he chose the law?”
“Yes,” Georgiana said. “My brother did not oppose it. He thought it a sensible plan at the time.”
A few mornings later they found him again at the confectioner.
He was already seated near the window when they entered, rising at once with easy civility when he recognised them. His pleasure appeared entirely natural, as though such meetings were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Elizabeth thought she had seldom seen a gentleman appear so perfectly at ease in a place where he had so recently been a stranger. A gentleman might possess leisure, certainly, yet she had always understood that those engaged in the law possessed rather less of it.
Still, she knew very little of such professions.
As they walked away from the confectioner, the thought returned to her.
When she next wrote to Jane, she decided she would mention Mr Wickham. Lambton, after all, was seldom ignorant of its former residents.